The present invention relates to program debugging, and more particularly, to a technology for improving debugging efficiency by limiting the debug area of a program (code).
In developing software, target programs are increasing in size year by year. The target programs include, in addition to newly developed code, code developed on its own company and tested code, such as libraries developed by a third party.
Development and maintenance of software needs to include testing and debugging of programs. If all the code is debugged during the debugging, already-tested code is also included in the code debug area as the program size increases, which poses the problem of decreasing the debugging efficiency.
Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 06-103113 (hereinafter, “the '113 publication”) discloses a method for supporting difference test debugging, whereby whole or part of a program whose reliability is already ensured is excluded from the target of test debugging, thus allowing efficient debugging. The method provides a coverage-information storage file for an existing completed or half-completed program, sets information of a tested portion for all individual statements in the coverage-information storage file, and thereafter, for a change of the program, sets only the coverage information of the changed portion to an untested state, and executes debug testing only on the statements of the changed portion.
Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2002-108652 (hereinafter, “the '652 publication”) discloses a program correlation detecting apparatus for reducing the burden of a debugging work and improving the efficiency of the debugging work. This apparatus divides target programs into groups by comparing the components necessary for creating the programs and outputs the result of grouping externally as the correlation of the programs. If the details of the programs match, repeated debugging work for the matched details is avoided so that the burden of the debugging work is reduced and the efficiency is improved.
Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 11-272502 (hereinafter, “the '502 publication”) discloses a software reliability evaluation apparatus that estimates the reliability of a program to be tested. This estimation method includes an acquisition step of executing testing of a target program and acquiring various items of information necessary for estimating the reliability of the target program and a determination step of determining whether to continue the testing on the basis of reliability estimated based on a reliability estimation model. The various items of information include bug detection information, testing time, the number of occurrences of software faults, the number of testers, test coverage, an application method that the user indicates, the range of application, and the kind of reliability estimation model applied.